Yesterday, shortly after I posted a column on Secretary of State John Kerry’s push to have the White House approve U.S. strikes on Syrian airfields — and how Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey pushed back strongly against the idea — I heard from a number of people who support Kerry’s stance and think that the Pentagon is being unnecessarily timid. 2. For negotiations to work, the regime of Bashar al-Assad must feel that its existence is threatened. This might be the most important point, or at least the most immediately relevant one. Kerry wants upcoming peace talks in Geneva to work. In order for that to happen, he believes that the playing field in Syria must be leveled; in recent days, regime forces, which now include the Iranian proxy Hezbollah, have been swatting back the rebels with comparative ease. Airstrikes, and other U.S. measures, would provide the regime with the incentive to sit down and talk. There is no reason to talk compromise with the opposition when you are winning. This is true even for people who aren’t psychopathic mass murderers. 3. Whether we like it or not, we are in a conflict with Iran, and our credibility is on the line. Obama seems eager to exit the Middle East. Most foreign policy experts, up to and including the secretary of state, believe that there is no hiding from its problems. The U.S. must play a leadership role in the Mideast or the vacuum left by its departure will be filled by radicals, of both the Shiite and Sunni varieties. It is true, as Dempsey has argued, that there is no exit strategy for Syria (in part because there’s not much of an entrance strategy, either), but the U.S. will soon face even bigger problems in the region if it doesn’t intervene now. Kerry understands the price of intervention. This is the lesson of Iraq. But he has also argued that there is a price to be paid for nonintervention. 5. The Israelis did it, and so can we. Kerry himself, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t made this argument to the generals — knowing, I assume, that it would, if nothing else, irritate them like nothing else. But others in the interventionist camp have raised the issue. Israel, has struck at Syrian targets three times recently, using standoff weapons fired from over the border. Israel thinks that it made its point: There will be consequences if Syria transfers weapons and delivery systems to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Dempsey, in the White House situation room last week, argued that in order to launch an effective attack on regime targets, the U.S. would have to first suppress Syria’s air-defense system, which would require at least 700 sorties. Interventionists tend to believe that the Pentagon — and the White House — are using this an excuse for inaction.

More: Why Kerry Wants to Strike Syria - Bloomberg

n an effort to show how weak our food-stamp programs are, 26 members of Congress have decided to reduce their grocery budgets to $4.50 per day, the going rate for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Accordingly, the feat has been named the “SNAP Challenge,” and is essentially a way for these 26 Democratic representatives to publicize how poor the availability of high-quality food is at lower incomes.

The participation of these congressmen and congresswomen is in response to a recent farm bill which would cut off 2 million Americans from the valuable nutrition assistance program, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The changes in the farm bill are set to reduce spending, cutting SNAP by more than $20 billion over the next decade. Those hit hardest by the change are “low-income people, mostly working families with children and senior citizens.”

More: Farm Bill 2013: 26 Members of Congress Take the SNAP Challenge to Protest Cuts

Here is the full list of those participating. Guess which Political Party is not represented?

From feministing.com

Turns out Reddit - home of pedophiles, ephibists and other “Jelly Belly” lovers now is putting out a book!

Advice offered?

Get CLOSE to her, damn it!

To quote Rob Judge, “Personal space is for pussies.” I already told you that the most successful seducers are those who can’t keep their hands off of women. Well you’re not gonna be able to do that if you aren’t in close!

All the greatest seducers in history could not keep their hands off of women. They aggressively escalated physically with every woman they were flirting with. They began touching them immediately, kept great body language and eye contact, and were shameless in their physicality. Even when a girl rejects your advances, she KNOWS that you desire her. That’s hot. It arouses her physically and psychologically.”

Decide that you’re going to sit in a position where you can rub her leg and back. Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap. Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.

Pull out your cock and put her hand on it. Remember, she is letting you do this because you have established yourself as a LEADER. Don’t ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick.”

The Game has been devolving into seriously squicky NLP psudo consent already - this is past all that and into full on sexual harassment and assault.

Directed to send this via Twitter - Hey @kickstarter, “Above the Game” promotes sexual assault. Take down the page NOW and refuse to fund the book kickstarter.com

YouTube

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, tapped by Republican leadership to be the face of their new abortion ban legislation, comes up with a new—and completely bizarre—argument in favor of the legislation:

REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): The bill has been amended. It does allow exceptions for rape and incest and the life of the mother, and that was the appropriate step to take.

CRAIG MELVIN (MSNBC ANCHOR): But the bill only allows the exception for rape when it’s reported. Only allows the exception for incest when it’s reported. Is that correct?

BLACKBURN: There is a reporting requirement in the text of the bill. And the hope is that that will help in getting some of these perpetrators out of the population that are committing these crimes against women and against minor females.

You know, if Republicans really wanted to crack down on the crime of rape, wouldn’t it be smarter to do something crazy like … cracking down on the crime of rape? Maybe even helping the victims of rape? Instead, they are proposing to punish rape victims.

More: Daily Kos: The New Republican Plan to Go After Rapists … One Fetus at a Time

In case you didn’t see this video from one of yesterday’s Pages Posts, please watch:

Youtube Video

Some incredible pics and videos at the link.

According to the Associated Press, the unrest began last week as a response to a 10-cent hike in public bus and subway fares that kicked in on June 1. But as dozens of protesters have written on signs and posted to social media since then, the movement is now “about more than 20 cents” — it’s about Brazil’s poverty, tax burden, political corruption, social services and a growing frustration with the expense of big-budget events like the 2016 Olympics and the World Cup.

“We don’t need the World Cup,” reads one popular protest photo that has been shared hundreds of times on social media. “We need money for hospitals and education.”

More: Explaining Brazil’s Protest Movement With Photos and Tweets

“We are breeding our own voters,” Fischer said of conservatives, whereas liberals “have got to import them … so that’s why they’re so enamored with illegal aliens and amnesty for them is they’ve got to find some way to get these people on the voter rolls to just maintain numerical parity with conservatives”:

YouTube

More: Fischer: Liberals Support Immigration Because Conservatives Are Outbreeding Them

So the man who has repeatedly stated sexual orientation is a choice now says political ideology is passed genetically. You can’t argue with that. That is SCIENCE!

In a hearing in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander said that the recently-leaked communication surveillance programs have helped thwart over 50 “potential terrorist events” since 9/11, at least 10 of which were set to occur in the United States.

More: 4 Terrorist Mega Plots Thwarted by the NSA

This isn’t the only example of entrenched prejudice at the prestigious University of Chicago. The Black Youth Project revealed a Facebook page called Politically Incorrect Maroon Confessions, where more than 950 “confessions” from U of C students range from insensitive to flat out hate speech. One entry laments the “onslaught of black people invading UChicago.” Another simply states, “Let’s start a male movement fuck feminists.” And The Huffington Post notes a 2012 incident in which the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity threw a “Conquistadors and Aztec Hoes” party, fraught with racist depictions of Latinos.

As for the U of C members of Phi Delta Theta, no one has yet faced any disciplinary action. Mack Julion, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 11, told the Sun-Times that he visited the house and spoke with the fraternity’s former president.

“I gave him my card and told him he may put something in writing,” Julion said. “I told him I would talk to the letter carrier and see how he feels. That was on Saturday and I haven’t heard back.”

More: Fraternity Watched as African American Mail Carrier Hauled 79 Boxes Labelled ‘F*Ggot N*Gger’ Backward

America is the richest country on Earth. We have the most millionaires, the most billionaires and our wealthiest citizens have garnered more of the planet’s riches than any other group in the world. We even have hedge fund managers who make in one hour as much as the average family makes in 21 years!

This opulence is supposed to trickle down to the rest of us, improving the lives of everyday Americans. At least that’s what free-market cheerleaders repeatedly promise us.

Unfortunately, it’s a lie, one of the biggest ever perpetrated on the American people.

Our middle class is falling further and further behind in comparison to the rest of the world. We keep hearing that America is number one. Well, when it comes to middle-class wealth, we’re number 27.

More: Big Lie: America Doesn’t Have #1 Richest Middle-Class in the World…We’re Ranked 27th!

Short but fascinating—I had a hard time choosing which paragraphs to include.

The natural frequency of your head is a result of your skull’s size, density and shape, say scientists in a recent presentation at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, meaning that the vibrations of your skull are ever-so-slightly different than the person next to you. Measuring the natural vibrational frequency, the researchers found that people’s heads like to vibrate anywhere from 35 to 65 times per second, with women’s heads tending to vibrate faster than men’s.

The scientists then tested whether different people’s vibrating skulls affected which music they prefer. While the team says vibrational frequency of people’s heads didn’t seem to predict which music they liked, “skull resonance was found to moderately predict the musical keys that people disliked.” […]

More at the Smithsonian…

I love these types of stories where art & science meet…it reminds me of when people talk about science & religion as if you must choose one and reject the other.

In this case the science is explaining the mechanics of hearing music—something I had very little knowledge of and found extremely interesting. That said, the science doesn’t explain the art, the inspiration…

Okay, time to get back to work.